The present invention relates to cooking appliances and more particularly to an improved small cooking device intended for grilling steaks or the like.
Cooking appliances are well known. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,150,609 there is disclosed a cooking apparatus wherein a cooking plate is in intimate contact with an adjacent heat sink so that there is an effective transfer of heat from respective heating elements to the respective cooking plates. However, a number of factors such as steaks having different thickness, storage convenience in a storage position, and oil dropping out of the well-done steak are not fully solved or even totally not addressed by the patent. Thus, continuing improvements in the field of cooking appliances are constantly being sought.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a cooking device comprising two substantially L-shaped supports each including a horizontal section and a vertical section including an outward hollow, cylindrical staged member; a lower cooking plate having a shape of parallelepiped, the lower cooking plate being releasably secured to the supports and including a plurality of electric heating elements, a top flat surface with a peripheral wall formed therearound, and a peripheral flange for enclosing its underside; an upper cooking plate having a shape of parallelepiped, the upper cooking plate being matingly engaged with the top flat surface and including a plurality of electric heating elements and a hollow protrusion at either side; a handle shaped as an n and including two hollow cylinders pivotably secured to the outward hollow, cylindrical staged member, two first elongate slots at the sides, two pin-shaped sliding members each loosely inserted through the first elongate slot and the hollow protrusion so as to pivotably secure the upper cooking plate to the handle, and a second elongate slot at the same side as one of the first elongate slots; and a fastening mechanism including latch means at its upper portion inserted into the second elongate slot for fastening the fastening mechanism and the handle together, and a lower hook, wherein each sliding member is either slid to one end of the first elongate slot when a plurality of thin steaks are placed between the plates or slid to the other end of the first elongate slot when a plurality of thick steaks are placed between the plates so that the underside of the upper cooking plate is capable of being in intimate contact with the steaks for effectively transferring heat from the heating elements of the plates to the steaks; an upward pivot of the handle and the upper cooking plate is stopped by the vertical sections so that oil drops formed by the thoroughly cooked steaks on the underside of the upper cooking plate are capable of flowing down from the slanted underside of the upper cooking plate to the top flat surface; and the lower hook is capable of clinging to the peripheral flange for fastening the plates together prior to storage.
In one aspect of the present invention, the horizontal section of each support comprises a flat end adjacent the vertical section and each vertical section further comprises a top protuberance having a flat lateral end so that the cooking device is operative to stand upright by resting the protuberances and the flat ends on a supporting surface. This can save storage in a storage position of the cooking device.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is an exploded view of a preferred embodiment of a cooking device according to the invention;
FIG. 2 is a side view of the device of FIG. 1 in a closed position schematically showing a thin steak placed between the upper and lower cooking plates;
FIG. 3 is a view similar to FIG. 2 schematically showing a thick steak placed between the upper and lower cooking plates;
FIG. 4 is a view similar to FIG. 2 where the upper cooking plate is pivoted to open for removing the well-done steak;
FIG. 5 is another side view of the device of FIG. 1 for showing a fastening of the device by fastening mechanism in a storage position;
FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along line 1xe2x80x941 of FIG. 5 with the fastening mechanism enlarged for showing its details;
FIG. 7 is a view similar to FIG. 5 where the device is secured; and
FIG. 8 is a view similar to FIG. 7 where the device is upright for reducing storage space.